Avance del soporte del mástil

Movement phrases in dance, and in fi lm editing, are compositions of movement into perceptible and intentionally formed rhythmically

Feeling Pulse

Try speaking without placing an accent on any syllable. Without training or practice this is very diffi cult to do because we learn language with emphasis points built into it. That is, we learn language in order to say what we mean, and with- out emphasis points, meaning is indistinguishable. If you can master the speaking of a couple of sentences with equal emphasis on each syllable and equal time between each syl- lable, try speaking these sentences to someone and see how well they understand you. Chances are they will focus a great deal more on how strangely you are speaking than on the meaning of the words you are uttering. This is because you

have created a monodynamic utterance, and the meaning of every interchange resides to some extent in the dynamic — your listener will focus more on the dynamic than the words. An editor works with and shapes the dynamics of inter- changes when shaping rhythm. She chooses takes or shots with different emphases, she places these shots in relation to one another to create a pattern of emphasis, and she cur- tails the duration of shots to shape the rate of the accents. Underlying all of these decisions, whether they result in maintaining or varying the fi lm’s pulse in a given moment, will be a feeling for the overall strength, speed, and consis- tency of the pulse being shaped in the fi lm.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE

CHAPTER 2: Editing as Choreography

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expressive sequences. A phrase in the choreographic sense is distinct from a linguistic phrase in that it may be of any length and may con- tain more than a single choreographic “ thought. ” A choreographic phrase is a series of related movements and grouped emphasis points. There is a broad spectrum of approaches a choreographer might take to shaping movement phrases in dance. What follows is a description of two points along that spectrum, provided to illustrate the common- alities of the choreographic and editing approaches to the shaping of movement phrases.

One choreographic approach is for the choreographer to create a movement sequence with inherent timing, spatial organization, and emphasis, and then teach that phrase to the dancers. This approach to choreography has an affi nity with Tarkovsky’s water pipes. If a fi lm director works in this way, he provides the editor with rushes that

FIGURE 2.2

The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974). In all Tarkovsky fi lms, the phrasing is not created in editing; rather, it resides in the shot. The movement of the camera, the actor, the dialog, and the sound are all coordinated in the rehearsal and shooting process to create the fl ow of time and energy, which expresses the meaning. [Photo credit: Mosfi lm; The Kobal Collection]

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have immutable, self-contained phrases of movement. So, the editor’s job is not to create the phrase’s rhythm, but to respect and realize the phrase’s rhythm. In this approach the editor’s choreographic input comes in extending these rhythms to the construction of the larger sequences. She does this by shaping the joins of phrases. So, she is still grappling with the shaping of movement “trajectories, transitions . . . and temporal and spatial confi gurations, ” but the smallest unit for transitioning or confi guring is not the pulse or the single gesture or movement fragment, but the phrase.

A different approach a choreographer might take is to give her dancers “ movement problems ” to solve, such as, “Find fi ve gestures of frustra- tion and helpless anger. ” These fi ve gestures are fragments, like a series of short shots. The choreographer connects the fragments into phrases and in doing so designs their temporal fl ow, spatial organization, and emphasis. In fi lm, the connecting and shaping of fragments into rhythms is done by the editor. This approach has more affi nity with Eisenstein’s sense of montage than Tarkovsky’s. Tarkovsky’s approach to rhythm considers time to be present in the shot, and the editor’s job to be to construct the fi lm so that time fl ows effectively almost in

Movement Phrases

FIGURE 2.3

In Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) shots are cut together to form phrases. Eisenstein’s fi lms make use of cutting as a form of movement, not just camera movement and actor movement. So each cut is a move to a different shot, a move of the spectator’s mind and eye, and a move that contributes to the phrasing. [Photo credit: Goskino; The Kobal Collection]

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spite of cuts. In Eisenstein’s view the course of time is created in the cutting. The editing process actively choreographs rhythms; i.e., editing connects bits of movement on fi lm to create the passage of time. In this approach, the editor takes fragments of movement and designs them into phrases. Rises and falls of emphasis, direction and speed changes, size, shape, and performance are all shaped into the dynamic fl ow that is the “cine-phrase’s ” meaning.

Choreographers often work with abstract or nonnaturalistic move- ment, and editors often work with naturalistic movement of actors or subjects, but the choreographic principles can still be applied. A movement phrase is not just a unit of rhythm in abstract movement. A naturalistic character’s movement in narrative drama is also shaped choreographically into phrases. For example, the action in a given script calls for a character to enter a room, drop the keys on the table, and open the fridge. This is a series of movements that may be handed to the editor with its phrasing intact in one shot, or it may be a series of gestures covered in a variety of shots from which the editor must select and shape fragments into a phrase. In either case, the phrasing of the movement’s rhythm will carry and impart a signifi cant portion of the movement’s meaning.

A choreographer trying to elicit affective phrasing from a live performer would just say, for example, “Come in quickly, hesitate, then walk very deliberately. ” An editor may have one take in which the performer does all of this —walks in the door quickly, hesitates before dropping his keys, and then walks deliberately to the fridge. Within this sin- gle take, each of these movements contains one or more pulses, and together they constitute a phrase.

Or the editor may need to construct this quick – hesitant – deliberate rela- tional nuance of the movements out of three or even more takes if that is the rhythmic phrasing she wants. If she has coverage in a selection of wide, medium, and closer shots, the editor would phrase this series of movements by choosing the performer’s quickest entrance, cutting

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Movement Phrases

to his hesitation before dropping his keys, and then inserting a shot or two of his deliberate walk to the fridge.

Once it is phrased, the movement becomes the emotional content in the context of the story. If the character comes home very late in a domestic drama and rushes in the door, the hesitation before drop- ping the keys might be a questioning, “Is everyone asleep? ” Or more melodramatically, “The house feels deserted, has my wife left me? ” The deliberate walk to the fridge then becomes thoughtful, maybe even anxious, depending on the story context. The story context tells us the FIGURE 2.4

Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly in A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard, 2001). A Beautiful Mind is just one example of hundreds that follow a middle way between Tarkovsky’s and Eisenstein’s views, creating some of the phrasing in the shots and some through the cuts. Ron Howard’s fi lms have a very silky smooth (some would say slick) feel to them, with every aspect of movement, including camera movements, performers ’ movements, and movements between shots expertly gauged to propel the narrative and not to draw the eye away from story. Cuts are tucked almost imperceptibly between similarly composed shots, with the performance movement motivating the cut or used as punctuation at the beginning or end of phrases. [Photo credit: DreamWorks/Universal; The Kobal Collection; Eli Reed]

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focus of the emotional content —what the questioning and the anxiety are directed toward —but it is the hesitation and the deliberate walk that gives us the feeling of questioning and anxiety. This is important because we don’t go through a conscious process in our thoughts to understand the feeling we are seeing. We feel with it, we use our mirror neurons and our capacity for kinesthetic empathy to grasp the pulsation of the move- ment directly. When a movement phrase is satisfactorily choreographed by an editor, it gives us the kinesthetic information the story requires. It does so without confusing us or making us stop feeling and start ask- ing questions about what we’re supposed to be feeling, and it does so immediately — it lets us feel and move on to what happens next.